Lamont Harrington's Blog

To read my PDC Day 1 recap, click here.

Ray Ozzie once again kicked off the keynotes for the day.  Today, the focus was on the client and the Live Services component of the Windows Azure platform.  In his opening remarks, Ozzie further solidified our story around the integration of the PC/Web/Phone and how our strategy will fundamentally change how we as consumers interact with these devices and that consumers demands for this type of integration is growing.  Our approach is to seamlessly integrate our S+S platform across these devices, exploiting the power of the PC through our investments in Windows and client runtimes such as Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), the power of the web through our investments in Silverlight 2 and Internet Explorer 8, and the power of the mobile device (e.g. Phone) through our investments in Windows Mobile and our Windows Live Services.  In his commentary, he basically broke down the 3 aforementioned areas as follows:
 
PC

• Full and high-performance access to displays & peripherals
• Natural UI & common controls for ink voice/audio, camera, touch
• Local data privacy, portability, reliable/fast/full access
• Use & recombine applications, data, documents, media
• A personal environment, trusted & assumed under your control

Web

• One common way to find, access, assemble & interact with people
• One common way to find, access, share & transact information
• One common way to connect devices, services, organizations & activities

Phone

• Like the PC, provide a natural UI & common controls for voice/audio, camera, touch
• Like the PC, provide facilities for local data privacy, portability, and reliable/fast/full access to data
• Like the PC, use & recombine applications, data, documents and media
• Provide a secure and reliable experience
• Provide rich access to media/data through similar facilities afforded by the PC and Web "tiers"

KEY TAKEAWAY: Microsoft's Software + Services strategy includes driving rich user experiences across multiple mediums highlighting the strategic advantage afforded to us through the Internet.  Our client runtimes such as Silverlight and WPF, coupled with our Windows brand (to include mobile) and key advances in our Internet Explorer technology will position us to deliver the next generation of user experiences on top of our investments in our Windows Azure Services Platform.
 
Windows 7 is Coming!
A lot of emphasis was put on Windows 7, as it was one of the main things PDC attendees wanted to see.  Most of the other topics discussed during the keynotes were further fleshed out during the breakout sessions, but I'll provide some commentary about those in this post.  Steve Sinofsky, Senior VP, Windows division discussed our strategy around Windows and it's future as it relates to delivering next generation experiences.  During his keynote, Sinofsky laid out our strategy around Windows 7 as it relates to what investments we're making in the OS to build upon the platform established by Windows Vista, learning from the mistakes we made with Vista (and yes, he openly said we made mistakes ) while at the same time building upon the groundbreaking work we've done in the area of Windows security, to deliver a product that we'll be proud to sell and our customers will be proud to use.  In his "Transition from Windows Vista" discussion, he highlighted several lessons learned from our Vista experience:

1. Ship solid Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista SP1 products - With the negative press we got from the initial launch of Windows Vista, it was imperative that we shipped a solid Windows Server 2008 product and SP1 update to Windows Vista.  In reference to Vista SP1, we needed to ensure that we addressed the key issues highlighted by our customer feedback in efforts to drive broader adoption of Vista (and not just on new PC sales)
2. Ecosystem Readiness - Driving Vista readiness was a key area during the launch lifecycle where we needed to spend more energy.  Through working with our partners, ISVs, OEMs, we need to ensure that they are equipped with the information they need in order to make Vista the platform of choice for new deployments, highlighting the enhanced capabilities of the OS, and showing clear evidence of the value add for customers making the investment
3. Standards - Our investment in standards support as it relates to security, network protocols, etc has positioned us as a leader in driving industry standardization around the aforementioned areas in addition to new capabilities we introduce in future versions of the OS
4. Compatibility - Working closely with our OEMs to drive more hardware compatibility with Vista is key.  Microsoft is making significant investments in this arena, particularly as we drive towards the RTM of Windows 7, to ensure that customers have the best possible experience with Windows 7
5. Scenarios - Clear identification/clarification of Windows usage scenarios is key for us in improving the overall quality of the product.  We are taking very proactive measures to learn how the product is being used and what critical areas we need to focus on to deliver the best possible experience

Julie Larson-Green gave the PDC audience a demonstration of the Windows 7 (build 6933) and it was met with much applause and "ooohs and aaahs"   To quickly summarize the things she demoed/discussed:

• "One click" experience when navigating Windows taskbar and menus.  For example, if you have multiple instances of an application (say Internet Explorer) open on your desktop, by hovering over the any of the windows in the taskbar, you get a thumbnail view of all the instances, thereby allowing you to select whichever instance you want from a single mouse click
• Taskbar "Jump List" which essentially gives you an MRU list of the most recently launched applications & documents.  For example, if you have an Excel icon in your taskbar that you use to launch Excel, by hovering over the icon you can see a MRU list of Excel workbooks you've opened.  This capability extends to the Windows menu as well.
• "Libraries" which help you aggregate and search content across multiple hard drives and machines connected within your network
• "Homegroups", which gives you the ability to creates groups of Windows 7-based machines or other computing resources (ex: printers) within your home network and when your machine is connected, have any one of those machines automatically discover/connect to those resources.
• Ability for Windows 7 to automatically detect whether you are on your home or work network and automatically change your connection to network resources (such as printers) without you having to do any manual configuration
  Docable windows which essentially allows you to drag an application window to the left/top/right side of the screen and have it dock (or "snap") to that location.
• Windows Gadgets, which now work differently.  No more dependency of the Windows Gadget Sidebar.  Gadgets now float freely on the desktop
• Enhancements to the task tray that essentially allow you to organize what goes into the task tray (and not have it "dictated" to you by the installed application/driver/service)
• Windows 7 touch features extend to Windows Live Services such as Virtual Earth

Sinofsky stressed our focus on "Fundamentals" in our engineering efforts as we drive towards the RTM of Windows 7.  In his fundamentals discussion, he focused on the following:
 
Decrease

• Memory Footprint
• Disk I/O
• Power Consumption

Increase

• Speed (Faster Boot, Device Ready)
• Responsiveness (Start menu, Taskbar)
• Scale (256 processors)  - Yes, you read it right, Windows 7 is being positioned to support up to 256 processors)
  

It is important to understand though that Windows 7 shouldn't discount the benefits of moving to Windows Viata.  This essentially goes without saying, but opting Windows Vista positions enterprises to more easily migrate to Windows 7 when it becomes available.  Windows 7 is going to present some very compelling features that may have folks thinking they should wait, however, it's key that Microsoft wil continue to drive Windows Vista as the base platform to build upon.  Sinofsky made it evident in his keynote that we're still committed to Windows Vista.
 
What about Windows XP?
We will continue to push out updates to Windows XP for our XP customers.  It is important though to get them moving towards Windows Vista.
 
Developer Platform
Scott Guthrie came on stage and talked about our investments in our client runtimes (e.g. Silverlight, WPF) as well as our enhancements in Internet Explorer and IIS7, and our web development platform (e.g. ASP.NET, ASP.NET AJAX, ASP.NET MVC, ASP.NET Dynamic Data) as well as laid some groundwork for where our future investments are as we evolve these platforms/technologies.
 
Windows Live Services
David Treadwell rounded out the keynote to talk about our investment in the Live Services component of the Windows Azure platform.  He discussed the Windows Live Essentials offering (currently in beta and available for download at http://download.live.com/) which provides capabilities like email, blogging, messaging, photos, etc. In addition Treadwell talked about the rich integration of Windows Live Platform with Windows 7 and how key Windows Live capabilities will be a natural part of the Windows 7.
 
Announcements

• Windows Live Framework - Provides a developer framework for building applications on the Live Services platform.
• Office Web Applications - Web-based equivalents of the Office client applications (Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote) During the keynotes, the Group PM of Office demonstrated the Office Web Applications.  This provides a solid platform for delivering web-enabled versions of our popular office suite that BLOWS THE DOORS off the competition.

IMPORTANT NOTE: As it relates to Office Web Applications, this should NOT be viewed as a replacement for the client suite.  As a matter of fact, the web applications should be viewed as complementary and a part of of the Microsoft S+S strategy.  It is important that this not be positioned as an alternative, but as a solution to further extend the reach of Office. 

The day was filled with great breakout sessions that covered the following products/technologies:

• Windows 7
• Live Mesh
• Silverlight 2
• ASP.NET 4.0
• WCF/WF 4.0
• "Oslo" - Codename from our new application modeling platform.
• Visual Studio 2010
• Windows Azure
• Live Services Platform
• "Dublin" - Codename for a Windows Application Server that essentially provides a highly scalable runtime environment for WCF/WF 4.0-based distrubuted applications/services

Resources

• Engineering Windows 7 Blog - Great blog that gives a "behind the scenes" view, from the perspectives of the product team themselves, on how Windows 7 is being built
• Windows Azure Portal - Provides information on the Windows Azure platform as well as it's sub-components (ex: Live Services)

That's about all I have for now   Hope it's useful.

Few sample .NET applications have had more impact on the .NET development community than the Terrarium sample application that was released during the version 1.0 release cycle of the .NET Framework.  This solution created a community of .NET enthusiasts that far exceeded the expectations of the .NET Framework team.  It showcased a "production-level" end-to-end reference solution that highlighted key features of the .NET Framework and showcased the power and creativity .NET can bring to software development.  I recalled that for many months I inquired as to when the source code for this application was going to be released, because, as you may recall, only the binaries were made available.  Sure you could decompile the executable and supporting libraries, or use great tools like Lutz Roeder's .NET Reflector, but there's nothing like having the Visual Studio projects openly released for all to see!!

Well, Terrarium is BACK!!   The project was resurrected by the Windows SDK Team and MVP Bil Simser has volunteered to coordinate development efforts for the project.

Head on over to CodePlex and be a part of the effort! For all you .NET Framework "old heads" like myself who looked at Terrarium as an amazing solution to dissect, learn from, and foster new ideas around the creation of solution architectures, I emplore you to check out the project. 

Thanks Windows SDK Team for evolving the solution and thanks Bil for stepping up to take on coordination for the effort.

Fun times (especially for me) are ahead!   Especially with the introduction of WPF, WCF, WF, LINQ, Silverlight and an assortment of other technology goodies, this solution is sure to continue to evolve into something that we'll all continue to be proud to showcase as a premier .NET solution.

I mentioned in a previous post the work I've been doing with the Library of Congress.  It has been a great effort and an excellent showcase of the power and flexibility of our platform.  On April 12th, we closed another chapter in this unprecendented effort by officially launching their myLOC.gov website.  The website has been architected and built on top of a platform consisting of SharePoint Server 2007, Silverlight, Windows Communication Foundation, and Windows Live ID.  The launch of the myLOC.gov site on this past Saturday marked the culmination of 9 months of work to deliver a compelling solution that's geared at reshaping how Americans view American History by literally bringing many of the historical treasures contained within the walls of the Library of Congress to life and allowing not only the American people, but the entire world to experience this great treasure.

The launch of the myLOC.gov website capped off a great week for the Library of Congress and Microsoft.  As a part of the revitalized digital experience, coined the "Library of Congress Experience", is also the launch of Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF)-based interactive touch screen kiosks that's running within the Library of Congress's Thomas Jefferson Building in DC.  There, US citizens, and people travelling to DC from around the world, will be able to enage within an immersive technology experience that allows people to interact with the Library's historical collections in new and exciting ways.  The myLOC.gov site takes this onsite experience and brings it to the web!

In the coming weeks, myself, in combination with our great partners, Portal Solutions and Schematic will be creating a "How We Did It" article (likely to be posted on the SharePoint Team Blog), in the same vein as the two-part article I published on another great effort with Conservation International, that'll dive deeper into the overall solution architecture and cover specifics around logical and physical architecture as well as discuss implementation details of key features and functionality.

So stay tuned!

The Silverlight 2 Retail Financial Services Demonstrator provides essential resources to help customers and ISVs to create their own demo or proof of concept based on the Silverlight 2 platform. Included in the kit are:

• Functional Silverlight 2 Website (Woodgrove Financial) - View it online!
• Installation, customization and demo script that provides step by step instructions for installing the demo, customizing the data shown in the demo as well has how to step through the site with talking points.
• Source Code – that is right, you also get to see and use the source code to see what is going on under the covers and use as a foundation for your own POC!

Why use Silverlight 2 and the Demonstrator?

• Immersive, cross-platform / cross-browser user experience
• Insightful visualizations, improved end user experience that can be personalized and branded
• Great performance, reuse of .NET code on the web (cross platform!!)
• Great examples of using visualizations to help sell and service financial products including cause and effect, multiple scenarios, unified communications, etc…

Over the past year, I've had the opportunity to work on some really cool and unique projects.  I'm proud to add yet another project to my portfolio, which is the current work we're doing with the Library of Congress and the delivery of what they're calling their "New Visitors Experience", set to launch in the next month.  As the Microsoft Solutions Architect for this effort, I must say that to date we've produced some compelling solutions around Windows Presentation Foundation and Silverlight.  This work has been met with a tremendous amount of press but yet is only the tip of the iceberg of what's yet to come.  We've recently posted a video case study on our MIX website that highlights some of our efforts to date.  Stay tuned for more from this blog regarding the Library of Congress project and the really, really cool things we're doing around Silverlight, WPF, WCF, Windows Live and SharePoint Server 2007!

Microsoft has recently released the Silverlight Blueprint for SharePoint.  The Silverlight Blueprint for SharePoint is source code and guidance for developers describing how to use Microsoft Silverlight and Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies together in business applications and Internet Web sites. SharePoint applications that use Web Parts can now be built using Silverlight user interface elements. This capability enables a fresh look at data exposed through SharePoint Products and Technologies using the modern graphics capability in Silverlight.

To get more information about the blueprint and find out when/where you can download the bits, head on over to the Silverligh Blueprint for SharePoint website.

Microsoft has recently released the ASP.NET 3.5 Extensions CTP.  The extensions add new runtime functionality to ASP.NET 3.5 and ADO.NET, including (taken from the ASP.NET 3.5 extensions site):

ASP.NET MVC

• ASP.NET MVC provides model-view-controller (MVC) support to the existing ASP.NET 3.5 runtime, which enables developers to more easily take advantage of this design pattern. Benefits include the ability to achieve and maintain a clear separation of concerns, as well as facilitate test driven development (TDD).
  
  The ASP.NET MVC Toolkit provides HTML rendering helpers and dynamic data support for MVC.

ASP.NET Dynamic Data

• ASP.NET Dynamic Data helps developers build a fully customizable, data-driven app quickly. It provides a rich scaffolding framework that allows rapid data driven development without writing code, yet it is easily extendible using the traditional ASP.NET programming model.

ASP.NET AJAX

• New additions to ASP.NET AJAX include support for managing browser history (Back button support).

ADO.NET Entity Framework

• ADO.NET Entity Framework is a new modeling framework that enables developers to define a conceptual model of a database schema that closely aligns to a real world view of the information. Benefits include easier to understand and easier to maintain application code that is shielded from underlying database schema changes.

ADO.NET Data Services

• ADO.NET Data Services provide new services that find, manipulate and deliver data over the web using simple URIs. Benefits include an easy and flexible way to access data over the web, while enabling the separation of presentation and data access code.

Silverlight Controls for ASP.NET

• You can integrate the rich behavior of Microsoft Silverlight into your Web application by using two new ASP.NET server controls: a MediaPlayer server control that enables easy integration of media sources such as audio (WMA) and video (WMV) into your Web application, and a Silverlight server control that allows an ASP.NET page to reference both XAML objects and their event handlers.

To learn more about the extensions, check out Scott Guthrie's blog post on the topic or head on over to the ASP.NET 3.5 Extensions site.

Tim Sneath introduces a new Silverlight sample developed by Vertigo Software (excerpt taken from his blog post)

"Video.Show is an end-to-end solution that provides a reference-quality sample for user-generated video content sites. Taking advantage of all of our latest technologies: .NET Framework 3.5, ASP.NET AJAX, LINQ, Silverlight, Expression Encoder and Silverlight Streaming, Video.Show provides support for uploading, encoding, tagging, viewing and commenting on videos. Since not many people are building video sites like YouTube that have millions of videos, we've optimized the experience for sites with tens to thousands of videos."

The source code for this reference sample has been posted to CodePlex.

Part 2 of the 2-part series on how we migrated Conservation International's public websites to SharePoint Server 2007 is now online.  In this installment, we talk about how we designed and built the Silverlight v1.1-based Carbon Offset Calculator that is currently hosted on Conservation International's newly re-launched, MOSS powered, BiodiversityHotspots.org site.

I invite you to read the post and let us know what you think!

You may recall in a previous post, I wrote about how I led a couple of projects to migrate Conservation International's public websites to SharePoint Server 2007 as well as implement a Silverlight v1.1-based Carbon Offset Calculator that is currently hosted on Conservation International's newly re-launched BiodiversityHotspots.org site, which is completely powered by MOSS.

I've been working with the Microsoft Gold Partners, Portal Solutions, LLC. and Applied Information Sciences, who were intimately involved in the effort to put together "How we did it" blog posts to showcase some of the processes that went into the creation of these great solutions.  Part 1 of he "How we did it" series is currently posted on the SharePoint Product Team's blog.  Part 1 discusses the MOSS architecture that was implemented to meet Conservation International's business needs around performance, scalability, and ease of use and is a true testament to the power and flexibility of the SharePoint platform.  This solution displaced two existing 3rd party web content management systems and provides a unified platform upon which Conservation International will continue to deliver advanced web capabilities as they strive to build upon their already established conservation ecosystem with hopes of bringing attention to many conservation and environmental issues that plague our planet.

Part 2 of the series will focus on how the Silverlight Carbon Offset Calculator was designed/built and will round out the "How we did it" series.  So stay tuned!!

I invite you to read the post and let us know what you think!

A couple weeks ago I mentioned that I'd been working on the Office Business Application (OBA) Reference Architecture Pack for Public Sector, which focuses on providing prescriptive architecture guidance for building e-Forms solutions within Public Sector.  I've gotten numerous inquiries since that post as to when the bits would be available for download.  Well, I'm happy to announce that they are now available on our Connect website.  If you are new to Microsoft Connect, read the Microsoft Connect Introduction to learn how Microsoft Connect works and how to enroll.  Included in the download are hands-on-labs and a fully functional Virtual Machine that has all the necessary bits to run the solution.  Because the RAP is being bundled as a Virtual Machine image you will need either Virtual PC 2007 or Virtual Server 2005, which are both free, to run the solution.

Also be forewarned that the Virtual Machine is fairly large in size (weighing in at a ~31 GB), so please plan accordingly when you decide to download as it'll take a minute

I welcome you to download the solution and give us some feedback on what you think.  This release marks the first phase of many exciting things that will come out of this RAP.  To get more information on what's going in Public Sector, you can visit the Public Sector Industry Center on MSDN.

As mentioned in my last post, in addition to the website redesign and replatform to MOSS, I also oversaw a project that involved taking one of the customer's primary "eye candy" applications, an HTML/JavaScript-based carbon calculator, and ported it to Microsoft Silverlight v1.1 Alpha.  We solicited the services of a couple of talented developers, Pete Brown and Steve Suing, both of Microsoft Gold Certified Partner Applied Information Sciences to construct a compelling user experience geared as showcasing how you can leverage Silverlight to build Rich Internet Applications (RIAs).  And what more compelling a business scenario than to build a solution geared at drawing attention to our carbon consumption with hopes at making us all take a more proactive stance and preserving the earth's natural heritage by conserving on our energy consumption!

Below are some screenshots of the application, that you can access here, and while you're there, make a contribution to a worthy cause!  Pete also has written a blog post that breaks down how the application was built.  Head on over to his blog and check out the post.

 In the spirit of talking about the cool projects I've been working on as mentioned in a previous post I want to bring your attention to two new MOSS-powered websites that just launched, right at the eve of this year's Live Earth event (that's currently happening as I write this).  The customer's name is Conservation International and they've just re-launched their public internet web properties on Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.  Today, marks the official day of Live Earth, a 24-hour, 7-continent concert series taking place on 7/7/07 that will bring together more than 100 music artists and 2 billion people to trigger a global movement to solve the climate crisis. Live Earth will reach this worldwide audience through an unprecedented global media architecture covering all media platforms - TV, radio, Internet and wireless channels.

MSN is one of the sponsors of Live Earth and has launched an official website in support of the event.  Conservation International serves as one of the major content providers for MSN's Live Earth website.  I've been working with this customer in migrating their existing web infrastructure, which was previously powered by two 3rd party content management solutions to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.  Working under a tight deadlines, we were able to successfully migrate their existing sites over to the SharePoint platform and this is a true testament of the power and flexibity SharePoint Server 2007 provides for establishing a robust internet web presence.  Also in the wake of the migration to SharePoint, we also found time to build a "real world" application, a web-based carbon calculator, using Microsoft Silverlight v1.1 and Microsoft Virtual Earth which is a true demonstration of the power and flexibility of the Silverlight platform in delivering compelling Rich Internet Applications (RIAs). 

In future posts, I'll go into more detail into how we built these websites, but in the mean time, hop on over to http://www.conservation.org/ and http://www.biodiversityhotspots.org/ and check out MOSS in action!  If you want to see the really slick Silverlight carbon calculator, hop on over to here

As I mentioned in my last post, I've had the opportunity to work on a number cool solutions in recent months.  One solution that I've been privileged to work on and help deliver is the Office Business Application Reference Architecture Pack for Public Sector (wow, say that 5 times fast!) and it has just been released to MSDN.  This reference architecture provides prescriptive architecture and guidance for addressing a major business problem within today's Public Sector organizations, that being the processing of electronic forms. It illustrates how an OBA (Office Business Application) can be built to automate and optimize forms processing.  The reference solution framework showcased in the RAP is generic and can be adapted to enable end-to-end processing of a number of electronic forms in the Public Sector.

This OBA solution was built using a number of technologies from the 2007 Office System and .NET 3.0 platforms.  Among those technologies include:

• Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
• Microsoft Office InfoPath Forms Services
• Windows Workflow Foundation
• Windows Communication Foundation
• Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007
• Microsoft Office Outlook 2007

Also included as a part of the RAP are a number of supplementary materials including a click through demo, videos, technical and business presentations, and architecture whitepapers.  The RAP is being bundled as a Virtual Machine image, which will include the working application and source code and will be made available from our Microsoft Connect website.  You will be able to download the Virtual Machine image from there and can use either Virtual PC 2007 or Virtual Server 2005, which are both free, to run the solution.

This version of the RAP only marks phase I of a multi-phased approach for delivering OBA capabilities to address E-forms processing.  In future releases we'll be introducing more advanced capabilities, including:

• Personalized citizen portals
• Live Collaboration and Communication (Citizen to Organization, Organization to Citizen)
• E-Forms analytics and activity monitoring
• Advanced Office client integration for information workers
• Rich Internet Application (RIA) capabilities via Silverlight
• Integration of information cards using Windows CardSpace

So keep your browsers tuned into the many exciting things that'll be coming out of Public Sector.

Wow, October 18, 2005?  That was the date of my last post!  Well certainly a lot has happened since then!  I've had brief "blog post cameos" on my team's blog at http://blogs.msdn.com/publicsector, but I think it's about time I get back to my roots and start posting.  For those of you who've followed my blog, even back when I was on DotnetJunkies.com, you know that I joined Microsoft back in 2005 as a Technology Architect at the Microsoft Technology Center.  During my time there, I've had the opportunity to architect some of the coolest solutions on our platform.  The desire to further evangelize our platform in delivering robust solutions has landed me as an Architect Evangelist within our Public Sector Developer & Platform Evangelism team where I now work with customers to help them realize the potential of our platform in delivering compelling solutions that tackle many of the business problems that plague organizations today.  Still staying true to my SharePoint roots, I've been doing a lot of work helping customers architect Office Business Applications in efforts to exploit the power and flexibility of the 2007 Office System platform for delivering compelling business solutions.  In addition, I've also been focusing on helping customer deliver solutions using our take on